Get Involved

Volunteering With Akwaaba

We are entirely volunteer-run and we rely on people donating their time and energy to the project. Commitment is important and we expect our volunteers to attend at least twice a month. Contact to apply for any of the roles.

The roles we recruit for vary quite often as our needs depend on the availability of existing volunteers. If you are interested in any of the roles below, please get in touch and we will let you know if we are currently recruiting. Please bear with us if the recruitment process takes a while.

If you have specialist skills or experience which might be relevant to our project but do not apply to the roles advertised, you are also welcome to email.

We are looking for FootballVolunteers to supervise the children playing in our 5-a-side cage from 3-6pm. The role basically involves sorting teams, refereeing and making sure everyone is playing in a positive and safe way. If you don’t have a DBS check, you’ll need to register for one. Understanding the rules of football is an optional extra.

Do you have a skill, craft or passion that you would like to share on a one off or regular basis? We’re looking for children’s workshop facilitators to help us entertain and engage our young members. We see around 40 children age 3-16 each week and would welcome workshops aimed at any age group. All ideas are welcome – anything from dance to storytelling!

In the past, we’ve run ballet, boxercise, film-making, and screen printing workshops.

We are seeking volunteers with charity fundraising experience to help our core team get Akwaaba to a position of financial stability. Most of our funding comes from trusts and foundations, but we also raise money through community fundraising like sponsorships, crowdfunders and fundraising events.

What we need help with

Keeping our fundraising planner up to date

Planning our fundraising strategy so we know how much we need to apply for every year, and so we can avoid writing stressful applications at the last minute

Writing applications to trusts and foundations

Supporting other volunteers to write applications (e.g. by providing help with budgeting, access to documents etc)

We’re looking for experienced volunteer youth/children’s workers to help us plan, manage and take responsibility for the children’s sessions at Akwaaba. Each week two children’s supervisors plan, manage and take responsibility for the children’s session.

Supervisors will need to co-supervise children’s sessions once a month and then help out as a children’s volunteer once a month too. Sessions take place on Sunday afternoons. The shift times for co-supervisors are 1-7pm, whilst children’s volunteers can volunteer between 1-5.30pm or 1.30-6.30pm.

We try to organise fun and engaging activities for around 40 children age 3-14 every Sunday, whilst also making sure that they remain supervised and safe. Most of our young members are living in severe poverty and some have had traumatic experiences. Many of the children we work with are therefore particularly vulnerable.

We’d really like to hear from you if you have experience (or interest in) working with children and young people at risk of exclusion and/or with psychological, emotional and behavioural difficulties.

Responsibilities of the role

The following responsibilities will be split equally between co-supervisors on any given week:

– Planning 6 activities for the session you co-supervise once a month (including preparing/sourcing materials and resources).
– Setting up and cleaning up the children’s space
– Managing 6-8 children’s volunteers during the session
– Ensuring that the session is running safely (e.g. maintaining order and dealing with disruptive situations)

We are seeking experienced yoga teachers to help facilitate our weekly yoga sessions. Yoga happens from 2.30-3.15 at Akwaaba on a drop-in basis. We normally have between 1 and 5 participants of all abilities/experiences. Classes are informal and conducted according to Akwaaba’s principles of inclusion and solidarity.

Requirements:
– professional insurance
– experience of teaching yoga in community settings/for marginalised groups. If you do not have this experience, but have other non-yoga related experience working with marginalised or vulnerable groups, we will still be happy to hear from you
– experience of teaching yoga/working with people where English is a second language
– understanding of trauma and trauma-sensitive yoga (desirable)
– a commitment to tackling oppression and social injustice
– a minimum commitment of teaching one Sunday per month for at least 6 months

Welcome volunteers are the heart of the Akwaaba community. You will work directly with visitors to the project, making them feel relaxed and welcome in the space, being open for conversation or board games, supporting them to use computer facilities and running workshops.

You do not need to be an extravert to be a welcome volunteer, but you must be proactive in sessions! You should be comfortable and enthusiastic about engaging all our visitors in conversation. That includes people from a wide variety of ages and backgrounds, and with a wide range of perspectives and life experiences. People you speak to may have particular needs associated with displacement, trauma, economic hardship, or mental health issues. The people who most need the support of a Welcome Volunteer will not initiate conversations for themselves. That means it is your job to identify and speak to people who are on their own.

You will be called upon to solve problems that arise during sessions and ensure the space is safe and clean. We encourage Welcome Volunteers to take on more responsibility by arranging workshops, attending training session and participating in decision making at the project’s organising meetings.

We are particularly seeking people who have experience of working with migrants and/or a genuine interest in tackling the issues faced by our community. 2 Sundays per month is a minimum commitment, however we are looking for people who can commit to the project 3-4 Sundays per month. To apply, email akwaabalondon@gmail.com for a volunteer registration form. The second stage of the application process involves meeting our Welcome Volunteer Coordinator during a Sunday session.

The children’s volunteers work under the supervision of the children’s supervisor and are expected to help with the following: supervising the children, setting up and packing away the children’s area and specific activities, early years play-work, homework/literacy, and providing general support and encouragement to our child visitors. We have a range of children who attend the session (aged between 1-14). Ideas for children’s activities are very welcome!

Prior experience working with children is essential. This is to ensure that Akwaaba is a safe, comfortable and supportive environment for the children who visit us. Akwaaba is a voluntary project and we do not have the capacity to provide more than basic training.

A DBS check will be required if you do not have a valid certificate from the past two years. We can help with this.

Please contact Eve if you are interested in the role or would like further information.

Do you have computer maintenance skills that you could use in our sessions? We need volunteers to maintain our stock of laptops and printers – they are all second hand and often need tweeking to get them running properly. Computer volunteers also help people use the laptops to access the internet, complete application forms or write letters.

Do you speak Polish, Arabic, Turkish, Russian or Ukrainian? Some of our members struggle to communicate in English as well as having other vulnerabilities. We need volunteers to support them during our sessions including to access the activities that we offer. You would work directly with members of our community, making them feel relaxed and welcome in the space, being open for conversation, games, arts and crafts and supporting them with translation needs

Preparing a meal for 70+ people creates a lot of washing up! We always need more people to help get our kitchen back into good order after lunch. We also need help with tidying and packing up at the end of the session: cleaning up spills, packing away session equipment, sweeping and mopping.

This role would suit people who are enthusiastic and happy to muck in wherever they are needed. Cleaning up at Akwaaba is a group activity, it involves working with and chatting with other members of the community and is a good way to get to know the project.

We aim to have one drop-in arts and crafts workshop at Akwaaba every week. The workshops should be accessible, safe and not intimidating – other than that we are open to whatever ideas you have! Past workshops include drawing, painting, printing, clay modelling, leatherwork amongst many others. If you have a skill, craft or passion that you would like to share at Akwaaba either on a one-off or regular basis, get in touch!